Satellite college campus work OK'd

Published 10:57 pm, Monday, June 10, 2013

Albany

Albany County will get its new satellite community college campus, and it will still cost taxpayers about $86,000 more than first thought.

Yet the exact cause of the price remains murky, with neither lawmakers nor County Executive Dan McCoy's administration pressing the issue — or eager to take blame. The project involves building a satellite campus for Schenectady County Community College.

Legislators approved a pact with the general contractor Monday night after a month's delay sparked by Democratic lawmakers' insistence that McCoy's administration ignored a requirement for skilled labor apprenticeship programs.

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With quarters of the organized labor community howling with disapproval, the Democrat-led County Legislature last month required that the project be re-bid.

Even so, Wainschaf Associates of Rensselaer remained the low bidder. But the firm's second bid to renovate a floor of the county office building on State Street jumped more than $86,000 to $584,200.

Lawmakers noted that the scope of the project changed in the second round of bids but did not press General Services Commissioner John Evers on the issue during an abbreviated committee meeting just prior to Monday's vote.

Asked whether those changes could explain the jump, Evers said that question needed to be answered by the contractor. Last week he speculated that the delay, not "relatively minor" changes, was chiefly to blame — a characterization Legislature Chairman Shawn Morse disputed.

The do-over stemmed from a 2011 mandate that firms receiving large county construction contracts have apprenticeship programs for the relevant skilled trades in place when a bid is submitted. Neither Wainschaf Associates nor the other four original bidders initially offered proof of such programs because the county never asked for it. McCoy's administration maintained it need only see proof by the time a contract is signed, which Wainschaf provided. Still, some lawmakers said they feared making an exception by granting Wainschaf the contract could invite a lawsuit.

Wainschaf complied the second time, but that still wasn't enough to sell some Democrats on the firm, which does not typically use union labor.

The dissenters argued Wainschaf's signing onto apprenticeship agreements solely for the SCCC project violated at least the spirit of the requirement, which is meant to promote meaningful programs that give young people a foothold in the trades. Latham Democrat Tim Nichols said that's little different than the spirit of the entire SCCC project. "These too are higher education opportunities for kids," he said.

In other business, lawmakers also voted to transfer $2.2 million from a contingency account to keep the county nursing home running at least through July while legislative leaders and McCoy continue to seek common ground on the 250-bed facility's future.

The two sides are locked in a stalemate over McCoy's plan to privatize the nursing home by leasing it to a downstate firm for at least 10 years.